Age of Empires and Age of Mythology should be RTS games instead of turn based like Civilization

You could get a last generation AMD laptop with 16GB of RAM for about $500 USD in the states. I’ve seen some from Acer for ~$400 USD that’s pretty decent. Aim to get something with upgradable RAM if you can

Briar was nice for chatting when you only have Bluetooth connectivity. Messaging otherwise is subpar